1.A. Field of the Invention
This invention is in the field of Short Message Services, and more specifically, the field of implementations of the same devised to provide for SMS users, effective, visible, and comprehensible interpretations of consequential and cultural meanings for short messages whose bare substance, without contextual information, may be inadequate to prompt from the recipient the results or responses that the sender intended. This invention makes no claim for physical transmission, storage, or reproduction machinery or mechanisms, used to handle a Short Message (SM; in the plural, SMs), presuming the existence and availability of such physical means as well-established in the prior art, whether such be a Morse telegraph or a Blackberry wireless text message and pager.
1.B. Description of the Related Art
Short Message Services (SMS) have been implemented in wireless telephone communications systems as a way to send a message to a subscriber's wireless phone or other device. SMS messages have become quite popular recently, due in part from wireless telephone service providers offering SMS as a free service in conjunction with wireless telephony services; hence, many wireless subscribers have developed a preference to communicating using SMS as opposed to more costly wireless voice services. A messaging server, also referred to as a Short Message Service Center (SMSC), is configured for receiving an SMS message from a messaging source according to Short Message Peer to Peer Protocol (SMPP). The messaging source may be, for example, a cellphone supplying a user-input message, or an e-mail interface resident within the wireless telephone communications system. The SMSC, in response to receiving the SMS message from the messaging source, transmits a short message to the cellular phone based on the destination telephone number specified within the notification message. However, this arrangement still provides only limited flexibility in enabling different sources to send an SMS message to a cellular phone. In addition, existing cellphones are limited by memory to storing up to ten SMS messages. Moreover, this arrangement limits the ability of an SMS subscriber having a cellphone to send messages to a destination that does not have an SMS-capable cellphone.
The Short Message Service (SMS) allows wireless subscribers and service providers to send alphanumeric messages of limited length (approximately 150 characters). Subscribers may send or receive email messages via SMS. The wireless network may route email and other text messages to subscribers via the SMS. SMS is supported by GSM and other mobile communications systems and is similar to paging; however, delivery of SMS messages do not require the mobile phone to be active and within range, as messages are held in SMS Centers until the phone is active and within range. In this way SMS offers guaranteed delivery of messages. SMS messages are transmitted within the same cell or to anyone with roaming service capability. They can also be sent to digital phones from a Web site equipped with PC Link or from one digital phone to another.
Typical uses of SMS today include interpersonal communication and notifying services to mobile phone owners. These notification services include message notifications related to arrival of voicemail, email and fax messages, and reminder services. The SMS messages may contain preselected information, such as stock quotations or weather forecasts. In the prior art, SMS messages comprising preselected information are sent at predetermined intervals, such as at a certain time of day or when certain events occur.
However, most messages between individuals—particularly those which are both limited in length and asynchronous, two defining features of any SM—both are still informal and also rely on combined contextual and cultural knowledge for accurate interpretation and to have any consequential effect upon the recipient. In that sense, the human recipient is and must remain entirely in the processing loop. To date, no one has focused on the ability of a SMS to serve as an assistant to the human user in correctly comprehending the contextual and cultural linkages that the sender desired to associate with the SM sent. The closest that any have come is found in Application 20030144895, Asksu, et al., “Prepaid Personal Advisory Service for Cellular Networks”, that uses SMS keyword-matching exchanges to identify and qualify potential and available experts, but requires bridging, full human-to-human telephone contact, as the application explicitly states in ¶0016: “It is a further aspect of the present invention to establish a telephone connection between the customer and the selected expert.”
Prior Art Distinguished
The message-implementing aspects of the background field have focused on the need to solve the lack of a common protocol amongst either pre-existing, switched-circuit, Plain Old Telephone Service (‘POTS’) or the multiple, conflicting, and above-all proprietary protocols associated with the existing voice mail systems.
Short Message Service implementations chiefly have focused on the means for providing Short Message services, for linking Short Message services to binding, formal commitments (such as using SMS to automatically purchase products, request services or information, or make other binding commitments), or for enabling a SMS sender to commit himself to an automated response. What is missing from all of these is any conception of the communication involving the human recipient in the interpretation and continuation of the social contact and activities consequential to the receipt and viewing of the transmitted short message; equally missing, is any conception of assisting (rather than replacing, eliminating, or supplanting) the recipient as part of the communication process.
For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,560,456, Lohtia et al., “System And Method For Providing Subscriber-Initiated Information Over The Short Message Service (SMS) Or A Microbrowser”, there is no human recipient of the SM. The sender is the recipient of the response, and the invention focuses on retrieving and sending automated information responses to inquiries to the original sender. As the sender possesses the original context for the entire transaction, the invention assumes implicitly a complete lack of need or use for providing such assistance.
Then in U.S. Pat. No. 6,813,507, Gress, et al., “Unified Messaging System Having Short Message Service Command Processor”, the inventors focus on resolving the problems that met:                “a need for an arrangement that enables open standards-based unified messaging systems to utilize SMS messages as a command interface.”        
The focus here is again on the automated response, this time of a receiving device, to a sender's SM, as the patent clearly states:                “In particular, there is a need for an arrangement that enables a unified messaging system to parse executable commands from a received SMS message, enabling unified messaging operations to be performed for an SMS messaging subscriber.        There also is a need for an arrangement that enables a user to perform unified messaging operations, including retrieval of messages, by sending SMS messages to a unified messaging system.        These and other needs are attained by the present invention, where a unified communications system includes an SMS command processor configured for executing prescribed messaging operations based on reception of an SMS message having respective prescribed commands.”        
The idea of using a particular Short Message's associated contextual information to provide meaning and assistance to that Short Message's recipient(s) is entirely absent from Gress. Gress focuses on effecting the device(s) to which a Short Message is sent as desired by the sender, rather than on a human user other than the sender.
In pending application 2004/0024683 by Morcinicc et al., “Apparatus And Method Of Communicating Changes In States Of Contractual Responsibilities”, the inventors consider the value of communicating a state-oriented value of “commitment data” concerning contractual responsibilities. The inventors presume the existence (¶0012) of a both “an agreed commitment model” and “a commitment state store that forms a part of the commitment model”. While the inventors conceivably could use a SM as “an agreed messaging protocol” required by the invention, they fail to see any need to include either such a SM's contextual data or to assist the recipient in individually interpreting that SM, as the inventor's apparatus and method presumes that a known and previously agreed upon model governs all interpretations. This application requires (“introduces”, ¶0021) “a state centric model of contractual commitments”. However, in the real world, multiple interpretations dependent upon the parties' varying cultural norms may negate such a presumption at the very start. In such circumstances contextual assistance may be required, not merely desirable, to indicate to each party the other's presumptive view of the current and actual ‘state’ of the interaction between them. Furthermore, the invention does not consider the value of associated, but indirect, or post-performance activities which are not strictly required by the ‘model of contractual commitments’ yet which human concerns may render desirable. A final and significant point of difference is that contractual commitments and a known contractual model both require determinate and fixed language points, and are usually completely helpless at dealing with the rapidly-evolving and ever-changing social slang which, particularly in an SM or IM (“Instant Message”) environment, are the reality of human interactivity and intercommunication.
In pending application 20020187794 by Fostick, et al., “SMS Automatic Reply And Automatic Handling”, the inventors focus on a system that can enable improved management of SMS messages, and in particular enabling automatic replies, forwarding and filtering of SMS messages. Here there is no conception of assisting the recipient, chiefly because the recipient is merely the intended final target of the improved inter-transit handling.
Finally, in pending application 2005/0027608, Weismuller et al., “System And Method For Providing Commercial Services Over A Wireless Communication Network”, these inventors provide no contextual filling or assistance to any SM recipient, presume the transaction includes a purchase of service from the service provider through a SM, and focuses on service-to-user transactions, rather than on sender-to-user communication of intentions and agreements, whether formal or informal. In the eyes of the inventors, the service is hierarchical, from the central service to the peripheral users, rather than a peer-to-peer exchange.